Avilion

by Robert Holdstock

  Odysseus said, ‘You can enter some of these strange metal beasts. There is a space inside. Some have spaces big enough for several men. If they were in war, they would be a good place to hide, and this hard metal . . .’ he banged his fist against one of the machines ‘. . . would stop a spear. I find these monsters fascinating.’

  ‘War horses,’ Yssobel said, remembering an expression of her father’s.

  ‘War horses,’ Odysseus echoed. ‘That’s a good name for them. I’ll remember that.’

  The palace of green porcelain, this strange museum of past and future, dipped and turned, as if the earth itself had moved and shaped it. In places it was disintegrating, the marble cracked, the plaster falling. In one such place they passed a room of paintings, and Yssobel was entranced.

  Here were men and women and children, all with strangely pallid and blank faces, holding hounds and horses, dressed in exaggeratedly ornate clothing, staring out as if to say: Help me; I’m frozen in time. And scenes of sea battles between huge ships, mast- and sail-shattered, but so many masts and sails! And a picture of a screaming woman, being dragged up steep steps by armoured, hard-faced men.

  ‘I don’t understand these scenes,’ Odysseus said. ‘Some I feel I know, some make no sense.’

  ‘They’re beautiful. Not all of them. But most of them. They put my own painting to shame.’

  ‘Whatever your painting was like, don’t ever let anything here put it to shame. Some of these people look miserable. And the horses are too big. And the ships are a nightmare of size. No ship that big could sail. Come on: let me show you where the monsters live, before I take you to the shield.’

  But as Yssobel followed him into another gloomy passage, so she glanced at a broad picture, a terrible scene, of men in strange uniforms walking through smoke, with short spears held before them, and walking not on a beach or a hill but over multicoloured cloth, which seemed to embrace the fallen bodies of other men. Beside it were words written on a piece of thin parchment.

  She snatched this down, and her red side surfaced again for an instant, and she read the first line: I walked for my life across a field of tartan.

  Not understanding, but feeling drawn to it, Yssobel folded the sheet and tucked it away. Odysseus was shouting for her and she followed.

  This was a place of wonders. Odysseus was beside himself with laughter as he led her through a gallery of weird reptilian creatures, some small, some of enormous height and length. ‘What strange, perverted god made these?’ he questioned. ‘All neck, tail and teeth. By Zeus, I hope my later journey doesn’t involve an encounter with any of these echoes of a mad mind.’

  ‘I hope so too.’

  But as they left this display of forgotten night-born beasts, she looked again at the purloined parchment sheet.

  A field of tartan?

  And then he led her into the gallery of shields. There were hundreds, all slung from the rafters, turning and clanging against each other in a wind that blew from a narrow window, opened to the upper part of the gorge. Round, oval, tear-shaped, the geometry of these faces was astonishing and beautiful, as were the colours and the patterns, the animals and symbols, and the war-marks that had distorted, sometimes severed, many of these hand-held hopes against the coming blow.

  ‘This is my favourite room,’ said Odysseus. ‘And this is my favourite shield.’ He slowed the turning of a round shield with the image of a horse painted onto the outer leather. Thin bronze covered its face, but its weight came from wood and hide and wood and hide, four thick layers. This would have been heavy.

  Yssobel remembered the shield that he had stared at so forlornly, half embraced by the sea waves. This shield was identical.

  Odysseus was in contemplative, reflective mood. ‘Does the shield choose the man? Or the man the shield? I wonder. What does the shield - so many different shields - tell about the man who carried them? What does the armour of the man or the woman who wore it tell about the man or the woman?’

  Yssobel was lost by his brow-furrowing thinking.

  ‘Odysseus. My friend . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bad poetry. Stop glooming. Show me the shield that you brought me here to see.’

  With a sly glance at her, and a wry smile, the young Greek beckoned Yssobel. As she followed him through the shield room he suddenly turned, caught her in his arms and kissed her, swiftly but with meaning.

  ‘I do love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’ She pushed him away. ‘Now. Show me the shield.’

  ‘It’s behind your back.’

  It was a shield that could only have been carried by a man of enormous height and strength. When she stretched out her arms, she could not embrace its edges. It was made of rough wood in layers at the back, and again had leather pressed in between. But its surface, its shining front, was brilliant; patterned from some incorruptible metal, or perhaps a magician’s way with powdered crystal.

  And yet, as she looked at it, there was nothing but reflected light, and her own distorted image in the main shield, and in the green crystal boss that centred it.

  ‘And this is . . . ?’

  ‘Diadora’s shield.’

  Yssobel was stunned by its simplicity, having been shocked by its size. ‘I’ve heard of this. There is a story about my grandfather - Peredur - that relates him to this shield. If this is the shield.’

  ‘The shield of Diadora,’ Odysseus said, and reached to swing the war-mirror to an angle. ‘Don’t look at it. Be aware of it. From the corner of your eye. Such strange visions can be seen. You’ll probably understand them. I can’t.’

  Yssobel looked Odysseus in the eyes, remembering, remembering. But then, as he’d said, she started to see images in the shield, glimpsed from the corner of her gaze.

  Her brother Jack, struggling to drag a horse and a boat along a river that was flowing wildly against him. She saw him drag the boat onto the bank, disguise it, then lead the horse to open space, and sunlight. She saw two boys sitting by a stream. They were alarmed at first, then calm. Jack, her brother Jack, knelt in the water between them and washed. He was bleeding. She could hear the murmur of conversation, but not the words. And she heard laughter.

  Odysseus asked: ‘Why are you smiling?’

  ‘My brother found the edge of the world. Or will find it. His name is Jack. Does this shield look into time?’

  The young Greek shrugged. ‘No idea. But it shows other worlds, and they’re happier than the world shown in my own palace. Which is why I come here when I can.’

  ‘I need more. How do I get more?’

  ‘Keep watching. Think of what you wish to see.’

  ‘Everything. Everything. I wish to see everything.’

  He was hugely amused. ‘How long do you have? To see everything.’

  ‘Everything, I mean, to do with finding my mother, Legion, and a man . . .’ She hesitated, not sure of her words. ‘A man who seems to have been resurrected. A man called Christian.’

  ‘And he is? What, who?’

  ‘My uncle. I need to understand him.’

  Odysseus acknowledged that, and with a polite bow withdrew from the shield hall. ‘I’ll be outside, with the grave gobblers!’ He laughed at his own rough reference. ‘Take your time. This time is yours.’

  Yssobel knelt by the Diadoran shield, staring ahead of her, letting the edge of vision entice the images. She called for her father, but to her surprise found that Jack was there again.

  He was walking in a strange, unearthly land, an Underland, with the tall and hideous beings which they had come to call Amurngoth. There were some twenty of them, and a rough-faced, tousled boy, clad in deerskin trousers and shirt, carrying a short spear. He looked angry. Jack was walking with him, his face also set grim.

  ‘What’s happening, brother?’ she whispered, and at once he stopped. They all stopped. He looked around him, puzzled, then dropped to one knee, his arm around the boy, but staring through the shield. And she heard his voice, as if
over a great distance.

  ‘Who’s there? Yssi? Is that you? It sounds like you . . .’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Coming to find you. I believe you’re in danger.’

  ‘How are you finding me? How do you know where to look?’

  ‘I can hardly hear you. We must put Haunter in touch with green. How did I know where to look? Huxley’s journals. You’re in Avilion, and I know how you got there. I’m coming through a different path. With the Amurngoth. We’ve come to an arrangement. I hope I’ll be able to keep it. Are you safe?’

  ‘Safe? Yes. For the moment. I have friends with me. When I find Legion, things will change.’

  ‘Then I’ll find you at Legion! Yssi . . . ?’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Do you still have the silver clasps?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Keep them safe. I miss you, sister. But we’ll find each other. Time isn’t controlling us in this place. We control Time. Am I talking to red or green?’

  ‘Red, I think. I thought I’d lost her.’

  ‘Let green take over. I am more Haunter than Jack. So when you find wildwood, we can speak more easily.’

  And he had gone, the image faded, his distant words of parting drawn back into time.

  She slumped for a while, head on arms on the patterned floor, tears not quite flowing; but she felt lonely. The encounter through the mirrored surface had been wonderful. And yet her own words, until then thoughts unspoken, had frightened her.

  When I find Legion, things will change.

  Why had she said that?

  Yssobel straightened up, her head banging against one of the other dangling shields, a moment’s easier pain, before once more turning her edge of vision to Diadora.

  But what to try and see? Her mother? Legion? She thought for a while, and then on impulse called quietly:

  ‘Christian.’

  He woke suddenly, and with a cry. He had been dreaming of Oak Lodge. In his dream he had been fishing on a pond with his brother Steven; their hooks had caught an old boat, a broken boat, but the lines had held and they had hauled it to the surface. He had waded in and pulled the wreck to the muddy bank.

  He had been dreaming of their amazement, their inspiration: was this the work of pirates? Was there a body to be found?

  He was dreaming about the discovery, and the story that might go with the resurrection of this sunken wreck, ten feet down in the millpond, close to their home.

  But awake, and with a cry, he had roused those sleeping near to him. He stood, shivering, looking around at the low fires, the stacks of arms, the half-roused army sleeping here on the open plain. They were moving through time towards a battlefield, but as yet he had no sense of direction: forward or back; just that they were being summoned. Legion ploughed the earth as it ploughed time itself; Christian, waking up, was returned to his secret fear that they would be facing a future war, and not one for which this vast, mixed, strange and ghostly army was prepared.

  Harsh, hard eyes watched him as he prowled, cloak around his body, a shiver in his limbs. He held tightly to his sword, hidden below the cloak. He knew that his leadership of Legion was something he would soon have to contest.

  Fires burned, his mind was in flames. Who’s there? he thought, unwilling to speak aloud in case his fear was shown.

  Walking into darkness, away from the fires, he remembered the fire that had taken his life, the huge fire that separated his home from Lavondyss; from the place where the spirit ran with the wind; from the dreaming place, where he had been reborn.

  Walking into darkness, he remembered Guiwenneth, and he hunched into himself as he remembered his passion for her, and how he had taken her, how he had killed his brother Steven, only to fail, to find Steven a stronger man, and a man who had come back at him with full fury.

  He remembered his sense of loss at losing Guiwenneth, though he had abused her, though he had loved her; but he had abused her. He had been a lost man then. Now, suddenly, waking from this dream, he felt lost again.

  Guiwenneth was watching him. Or was it truly Guiwenneth? The hair was the same bright, coppery flow, half shrouding the face, that pale, green-eyed face, that knowing, wonderful, silently smiling face; that loving face. But this was not her.

  Who, then? He was confused.

  Who’s there? he whispered.

  She stepped forward and he turned to face her. There was only darkness, the darkness of the plain, where Legion was encamped. But she was in the corner of his eye, and watching him.

  Why do I know you?

  She was silent, though. She was kneeling, now, her arms crossed, her head bowed as if in grief. She said nothing.

  You terrify me. You ghost.

  He had no sooner thought the thought than the apparition vanished. The air was fresh, there was a warm dawn light beginning to shimmer on the far hill, men were rising, and men were at his side, holding his arms, watching him with curiosity, but also with compassion.

  He shrugged them off and went back to where his armour lay. Sensing their presence behind him, he turned, half unsheathing his sword. The four of them stood very still. They seemed alarmed and angry with his action.

  The youngest of the four said, ‘You seemed disturbed by something. If we can help, we will.’

  These were his guard. They rode ahead of him, or beside him, four men he trusted. They wore dull-coloured tartan kilts and heavy deerskin jackets. They favoured weapons that he could not use himself.

  The youngest spoke again: ‘You need to be strong. We need to be strong for you. What is it?’

  ‘I’m haunted by the past. I can’t think why. There: is that enough show of weakness for you?’

  ‘Weakness? Where’s the weakness? What you took you took. What you take you take. What will be taken from you is what will be taken from you. You can do nothing about the first; the second is something you can decide upon. The third is the excitement!’

  He looked at this young, brash man, held his gaze. ‘Bad poetry. But you’re right. I can’t remember your name.’

  ‘Peredur. Not a name to forget. Remember it well.’

  Reflections

  The wind was freshening. The shield hall was a place of bell chimes as they clashed. The shield of Diadora, immense and heavy though it was, began to move.

  Yssobel looked at it directly. Its surface was like an ocean; rippling. There were patterns in its face, movement that flowed. She became entranced by it, unable to tear her gaze from the silvered aquamarine beauty of it.

  ‘Turn away!’

  She reached to touch it, but a hard hand grasped hers and held it back.

  ‘Look away!’

  As quickly as he had been there, Odysseus withdrew.

  ‘I thought you’d gone outside,’ Yssobel said.

  ‘Didn’t trust you not to look,’ he replied from behind her. ‘Have you seen all you need to see?’

  ‘I don’t know. A while longer?’

  ‘Why ask me? Take as long as you like. I have no immediate plans.’

  There was a silence then.

  Odysseus said quietly, ‘Ask for what you truly wish to see. I’ll give you a hint. It’s your mother. It doesn’t take much of a mind to understand that.’

  ‘Be quiet! Go away.’

  ‘The first, yes. The second, never.’

  Yssobel waited until he had settled again, then called for Guiwenneth.

  There was nothing of her but shadow. She walked through the camp, wrapped in her cloak, wrapped in her own arms. The moon was low; fires guttered in the light breeze. Men and women slept around the glow. She walked as a shadow.

  Then, suddenly, an owl, white breasted, diamond-eyed, rose before her, wings spreading and folding as it flew from its roosting place. Such life in this death!

  And as if the bird were the sound of new life, now she heard her daughter.

  ‘I’m coming to find you. I’m coming to bring you home.’

  ‘Yssobel?’ She loo
ked around, alarmed, searching the dusk. ‘Don’t. Don’t. You never understood. Leave me alone. I am here to take care of an old wound, and if you interfere I’ll lose my life again.’

  ‘The resurrected man.’

  Guiwenneth was suddenly aware that this was oracular contact. She stared at one of the fires. ‘Call him what you like. Love him as you like. I need time to find and kill him. Go away!’

  ‘I’m coming to find you.’

  ‘You will never manage that. Even if you did, it would be too late.’

  ‘I intend to take you home.’

  The spectre of Guiwenneth laughed loudly. ‘There is no going home.’

  ‘You sang the Song of the Islands of the Lost when you left. You can unsing it.’

  Guiwenneth turned slowly in a full circle, trying, perhaps, to get a glimpse of her daughter. She laughed. ‘How do you unsing?’

  ‘I don’t know, mother. But there must be a way.’

  ‘Leave me, daughter. Go back to where you belong. Find Odysseus and marry him.’

  ‘Odysseus is here. We found each other again. Marriage is not a prospect. Our paths will soon draw apart.’

  ‘A shame. A shame,’ this vision regretted. ‘He was a handsome boy.’

  ‘My father is missing you.’

  Guiwenneth sighed and dragged her long hair around her face; in the mirror-shield she looked thoughtful and, for a moment, lost. Then the flash of hard-eyed green again. ‘Steven will cope. He always knew that our life together would be a fleeting one. He’s no fool, your father. Where are you?’

  ‘In a palace, watching you through the edge of vision. From the corner of my eye. You seem so sad, Gwin. And so angry.’

  ‘I’m here to do a deed, Yssi. If you wish to see anger, watch me in a while. This is a big army. Getting to its centre is hard. But when I get there . . .’ Guiwenneth paused, tightened into herself. ‘Leave me to my own devices! I miss you too; and Jack. But this is the end for me. Try to keep your paths together, you and the Greek.’